Trawler
charter in New England is different, according to Hope Swift, a Massachusetts-based
broker with 17 years’ experience. For the most part, the trawlers
from Connecticut to Maine are privately owned, not part of fleets. They
change every year depending on owners’ plans, but they typically
are better-outfitted than bareboats. “There are trawlers up here
with permanent crew aboard,” she says.

That’s good news,
since boating in these waters is definitely different. “You could
be surrounded by fog all of a sudden, and you need to know where you are,”
she adds. “When it’s beautiful, it’s really beautiful.
But you can have a few days of bad weather, and that’s why [crewed]
trawlers are great.”

Bareboat prices range
from about $3,300 per week for an older Grand Banks 36 to about $4,500
per week for a newer Grand Banks 42. Captains are about $175 per day extra,
and crewed boats set their prices depending on the owner’s wishes.
Expect to pay a higher security deposit than with a boat that’s part
of a fleet. “It’s not perfect,” Swift says, “but this
is the only way to do it, by the grace of an owner who gives up his boat
for a couple of weeks in the summer.”